Monday, April 21, 2014

Life Goes On: Feeding the Kids

I'm on week 4, day 3 (just hover over the day and time to see this) of the Apocalypse - a Tuesday - and I have 2 young adults (Anna has 2 days left, Derek 5), 2 children (the twins Barbara and Charles have 8 days left), 3 toddlers (triplets Diana, Eleanor, and Frances have 2 days left) and an infant (Gabrielle has 1 day left). I have 2 cribs, 1 set of bunk beds, it's midnight, and I'm wearing sunglasses... let's go!

More seriously, before I get stuck in to the rigours of "feeding time", how is Derek doing with Culinary? He's currently a Line Cook (level 5) by which you can infer he has not been getting promoted as rapidly as Anna was. On average he gets a promotion every 2 work days, and most of the time he's spending on Practice Cooking; he's at level 6 there, while Line Cook prefers level 8. For the moment, it is still worthwhile to push his Cooking skill, but once it gets to 8 (or maybe only 7) it is probably worthwhile to just Work Hard. You ideally don't want any of the Performance modifiers to be anything other than full green:


(though of course with Science you'll have to put up with the fact that you can't Fish). But remember that the goal is to lift the restriction, not to get a 10 skill; the reason to improve your skill is to increase your rate of getting promotions. At present he's only halfway through the career, so he's saving time in the long run, but once that is no longer true even if I do want him to get Cooking 10, the quickest way to do that is to lift Culinary and then just have him make piles of food at home.

OK. So, the main pending problem I have is that until the twins become young adults, I will have a steadily increasing number of mouths to feed. (Admittedly in my case, I'll have lifted Culinary by then, but I'll still have to put up with a bit of it). The solution to the problem, unsurprisingly, is to make the food last as long as possible:

  • Stop eating as soon as the hunger bar is full. In fact, if you have lots of Sims and the adults have a day off (so more food needed than normal), stop when the hunger bar is about 2/3 or so. The objective is to keep them fed enough that you can make them do useful things - and no more. This does mean that you won't get a positive moodlet for food - but you won't get a negative one either.
  • Don't throw away food. I'm not just talking about the plate of PB&J you have; I'm saying when you stop eating because your hunger bar is full, leave that plate around so some other Sim can eat it too.
  • If a Sim is not currently useful, push them to the bottom of the priority list. An adult that has lifted their restriction would be an example. Don't let them starve to death, necessarily - oh, don't worry, we'll get to that - but feed the others first.
  • Finish every last morsel. If you have lifted Medical (as I have) remember that you can buy Simmunity and Sims that have this LTR do not get sick. But even if you haven't, pick the Sim that is least affected by being nauseous. Again, an adult that has lifted their restriction would be an example. They won't be very happy about being sick all the time, but it will keep them alive.
  • Hungry Sims can be made to nap until 1030-1100 (whenever you are next able to make PB&J). In extremis, haul up the stove and make them hot dogs, but be prepared for a fire.
  • Watch their autonomous actions. In particular, you don't want any of your Sims queuing up a "Wash all dishes on the lot" action, because they'll go and clean up all the bad food.
  • Eat the good stuff first, of course!
For example, Barbara and Charles shared half a PB&J before bed, and Derek has just gotten up:


Derek does have Simmunity (I bought it a while back) so he's going to finish off the kid's sandwich.

If your children get a few days at school clear from Snow Days, they should generally focus attention as follows:

  • Work on Late Homework. Remember that until you lift Education you can't do it at home.
  • Meet New Friends.
  • Talk to Friends.
There is actually very little point to Work Hard or Study Normally. Uninterrupted by snow, you will fill the bar easily with the socialisation options. Of course you will get interrupted by snow, but again: a good education would normally mean that you get to pick the trait when they become teenagers. Since you can't do that anyway until you lift Education, it's really not a high priority to do well at school. By contrast you definitely want them to make friends at school, because those are potential spouses later. And remember that with almost no exceptions your children can't do opportunities at school (cleaning the bug cages, etc.) without lifting Education, or attend field trips without lifting Military and Forensics; they have to come straight home.

Just following the general "eat only what is necessary" rules above, I got through to Barbara and Charles' birthdays.


I haven't listed the traits for the kids; I'll do that here:

  • Barbara (the heir) is Athletic (good), Frugal (irrelevant), Grumpy (bad), and Over-Emotional (generally good, but makes Grumpy worse). On her birthday, she has Logic 8 and no other skills.
  • Charles actually got an A at school, but of course he had to randomly pick his teen trait anyway. He is Insane (neutral - but generally more good than bad), a Loner (bad, but not terrible), Socially Awkward (bad, but not terrible), and Unlucky (very very bad). Unlucky is a terrible trait; I'll elaborate below. He has Logic 7.
  • Diana is Artistic (good), Athletic (good), and a Snob (entirely manageable). She has Logic 4.
  • Eleanor is a Couch Potato (bad, but not terrible), Good (usually good, with one exception: see below), and a Slob (usually good, but not so much now that I've lifted Medical - far from terrible though). She has Logic 6.
  • Francis is a Couch Potato (bad, but not terrible), Friendly (good), and a Slob (usually good, but not so much now that I've lifted medical - far from terrible, though). He has Logic 5.
  • Gabrielle (the only single birth, and the youngest) is Artistic (good), Friendly (good), and Perceptive (good). She has Logic 5.
I've noted that Slob is usually better than it is in this case, but it does have one useful feature. A Slob can lick a plate clean, and even if the plate formerly had spoiled food on it, this will not cause the Sim to get sick. And this will entirely fill the Slob's hunger bar!

"Good" is usually a, well, "good" trait to have - there are better ones to pick, but it's certainly not a terrible one to get landed with randomly. The exception is if you have the Emperor of Evil in the house, because the relationship between any Good Sim and the EoE will tank rapidly. Of course that's not the case here, so Good is fine.

The bad one here is Unlucky. Unlucky is not bad because of the minor effects it has on moodlets, or even that it makes fires and so on more likely. All of that is controllable, and even useful in some cases. No, the problem with Unlucky is that Unlucky Sims cannot die except by old age. You might not see why that is a disadvantage. In the real world, it wouldn't be. But in the Sims, unless by great fortune one of the next generation lifts Military, I will want Sims to die. It is the only way to them out of the household (you can't move out until Military is lifted), and ideally they should die as soon as they are no longer useful. Currently, Derek is useful (he hasn't cleared Culinary yet). Anna is useful to help look after the kids; she's also very low maintenance (most of the time she is napping, only waking to fix the shower or whatever). And Barbara will be useful because she's the heir.

But the other kids are not longer useful from the moment they lift a restriction; they will be taking up a slot that one of Barbara's kids could take up. So I will be executing them as soon as that happens. But Charles cannot be killed; if I do not unlock Military, he will have to die of old age, which takes ages. All of his traits at at best only neutral, but it is Unlucky that makes him a horrible twist of fate.

It's 32 days into the challenge now (a Wednesday evening). Shortly after Barbara and Charles become young adults, Barbara will become an elder. And hopefully long before then, Derek will have lifted Culinary. In the next entry, we'll see some examples of the fine art of Sim murder.

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